The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

parts for assembly at the point of distribution.
Along about April 1, 1913, we first tried the experiment of an assembly 
line. We tried it on assembling the flywheel magneto. We try everything in a 
little way first—we will rip out anything once we discover a better way, but 
we have to know absolutely that the new way is going to be better than the old 
before we do anything drastic.
Subdivision of Labor
The following discussion makes it emphatically clear how subdivision of 
labor can increase efficiency and, therefore, wages and profitability, enor-
mously. Subdivision of the job eliminates the need to change tools, walk, 
or even reach very far for parts. Excellent examples include improvised 

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64  •  The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
fire brigades or groups of flood control volunteers that pass buckets of 
water, or sandbags, so nobody has to walk.
The flywheel magneto example shows how subdivision of labor allowed 
one worker to do the work of four, and probably with less physical effort. 
Application of the same principle to the motor yielded a threefold produc-
tivity improvement.
* * *
I believe that this was the first moving line ever installed. The idea came in a 
general way from the overhead trolley that the Chicago packers use in dress-
ing beef. We had previously assembled the fly-wheel magneto in the usual 
method. With one workman doing a complete job he could turn out from 
thirty-five to forty pieces in a nine-hour day, or about twenty minutes to an 
assembly. What he did alone was then spread into twenty-nine operations; 
that cut down the assembly time to thirteen minutes, ten seconds. Then we 
raised the height of the line eight inches—this was in 1914—and cut the time 
to seven minutes. Further experimenting with the speed that the work should 
move at cut the time down to five minutes. In short, the result is this: by the 
aid of scientific study one man is now able to do somewhat more than four 
did only a comparatively few years ago. That line established the efficiency 
of the method and we now use it everywhere. The assembling of the motor, 
formerly done by one man, is now divided into eighty-four operations—those 
men do the work that three times their number formerly did. In a short time 
we tried out the plan on the chassis.